Sound on Mystic is an outdoor audio installation combining music, spoken word, sound art and ambience into an immersive experience. It is located along a two-mile stretch of the Mystic River in Medford and Arlington, Massachusetts, and is accessed through ECHOES, a free mobile app that uses GPS data to cue different sounds at various sites. Once you download the app, just put on a pair of headphones, take a walk within the installation’s extensive boundaries, and you'll hear a diverse set of sound works that are all united by the river itself, and its complex legacy as a place of history and nature, community and conflict, labor and recreation.

*Access Instructions:*

1. Install the ECHOES app (the link is below, skip to step 3 if you've already found the walk in ECHOES)

2. Search for "Sound on Mystic" inside the app

3. Download the walk (this will function better than streaming the walk)

4. Close out other apps on your phone that access your location and may interfere with ECHOES

5. Go to the river and open the walk. You will see a map with areas highlighted in blue. As soon as you enter a highlighted area, sound will automatically begin to play. Depending on how fast you walk, some pieces will overlap with each other, or some pieces will play completely leaving a period of silence. Don't worry, that's all just part of the experience -- enjoy!

Sound on Mystic is created by Ian Coss, Dwayne A Johnson, and Gary Roberts, with funding from the Medford Arts Council and Arlington Cultural Council, and support from the Mystic River Watershed Association. Contact us at soundonmystic@gmail.com.

Balla Kouyaté is a djeli and virtuoso player of the balafon, the West African antecedent of the xylophone. “Parkway” combines traditional West African musical elements with found sounds and electronic instruments.

A mom and her daughters walk along the Mystic River by Rock Hill and wonder about what the river and land looked like 400 years ago. They read and analyze a historic marker, talk about the original people of the land, and think about what the river will look like in the future.

“Continuity” is a collaborative composition featuring music, conversation and ambient sounds of the Mystic River site by Dakota artist Erin Genia and her kids Sam Genia, who is an artist and musician, and Ruby and Alex Genia, who are high school juniors in Medford.

I’ve always loved this stretch of open space along the Mystic – there’s something about the way the trees are lined up in a row that seems really intentional to me, and I feel a strong sense of time, nostalgia, and memory as I imagine who planted them and why. I learned that a branch of the Middlesex Canal (built between 1793 and 1803 and in operation until 1851) intersected the Mystic here at Boston Avenue. No remnants of the canal are visible – it’s just a layer of the past that I struggle to imagine. The more I thought about layers of time, the more I wondered who might have been here and what kind of journeys they had or wanted to have back when the canal existed. I started collecting and creating sounds to build layers of memory, imagining a journey through movement and song.

Wanda Strukus is an artist, producer, and curator working in movement, theater, storytelling, and sound.

During our recent months of quarantine, I found great solace in almost daily walks along the beautiful Mystic river. The traumatic sense of isolation made it difficult to even think of composing music, but slowly, as the seasons inevitably unfolded, things that I saw and experienced along the riverbank began to suggest musical sounds. My short piece, Catkin for solo oboe, was the result. The plangent sound of the oboe evokes both solitude and a sense of the almost pastoral environment, and the music expands in ways that I hope will remind listeners of organic growth and the riparian landscape through which the Mystic flows.

Composer Charles Shadle (b.1960) has taught music at MIT for the last 30 years. He was educated at the University of Colorado, Tulane University and Brandeis University, and is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

Alewife Hearing is a sound art piece inspired by the plight and perseverance of the Alewife Herring in its migration along the Mystic River and the Alewife Brook. The piece speaks of the river herrings' remarkable, annual upstream run from the sea to their freshwater birthplace to spawn. Alewife Hearing is the sound of an impassioned race for survival over centuries of an ever-changing habitat.

Joanna Hay’s free verse poem about the Alewives, read by actor John Shea, is woven with her violin improvisation, fragments of a 17th century hymn, and a contemporary fiddle tune.  Watershed scientist, Andrew Hrycyna, calls this migratory river herring a “charismatic fish” and local historian Dee Morris remarks on the value of the herring to Native Americans and pilgrims for food and fertilizer.  Each voice speaks to the importance of the herring as an indicator of a healthy Mystic River watershed. Medford’s shipbuilding legacy is heard in the bells between the voices and the fiddle tune finale reflects the ongoing continuum.The cough, snitch, gulp and bubble of the Alewives are the sounds of the underwater universe that co-exist inextricably with life in the skies and on terra firma. 

Credits:
Alewife Hearing: A poem by Joanna Thornewill Hay
John Shea, voice actor
Dee Morris, Medford historian
Andrew Hrycyna, watershed scientist, Mystic River Watershed Association
Joanna Hay, violin/viola performance
Sound of the Alewives by Rodney A. Rountree
Poulet Poulet Studios, Nantucket, Mass, Caleb Cressman recording engineer
Ian Coss, Final Mix and recording of the sound of water from a drainage pipe at the Alewife Brook, 

Music:
Alewife Hearing violin improvisation (written by Joanna Hay)
Psalm 24 from the Ainsworth Psaltery (early 17th century)
La Farge, a fiddle tune by Caleb Cressman (2012)

"Hard By the Mystic," by Terry E. Carter, is a proud native son's poetic reflection on the caring, but cautionary relationship the historic African-American community of West Medford has always had with the riverside locale of their neighborhood. Yes, it definitely chronicles Medford's early racism and denial of civil rights to people of color. But it also speaks to the grit and determination of the Black community to take what most thought was the dregs of the city and turn it into a strong, dynamic, and remarkable village. It's definitely more about love than hate, more about ingenuity than adversity, and more about beauty than ashes.

The motivations behind this audio work was to document an embodied narrative of a physical traversal of the shorelines of the mystic river—one which speaks to my own relationship with the space and the process of restoration and questions of access. 

Asher Tuil is a sound artist living and working in East Somerville, Ma: https://ashertuil.bandcamp.com

This sound experience intends to blur the boundaries between the sounds inside our headphones, and the sounds outside as you walk the Mystic River Path. The sounds move between arhythmic and rhythmic to musically evoke things that take us by surprise as we walk, alongside the metronomic feeling within ourselves with each step. Beginning with the sound of the musicians' own steps along the path, two violins weave in between the experience of direct forward motion and more meandering melodies.

Written and performed by Rachel Panitch & Abigale Reisman of Thread Ensemble.

“Mirror Loop” was created using *only* the sounds Mint Pillow field recorded on location and that are included in this sample pack. No additional instrumentation was used. All sounds and samples were imported into a Roland TR-8S rhythmic performer and sequenced via a Squarp Pyramid polyrhythmic sequencer. Some samples were manipulated using Logic Pro’s sampler as well as outboard and digital FX.

Mint Pillow’s aim was to recycle the sounds that are present between Amsell Colebrook Playground and High Street to create a “Mirror Loop”. The percussive structured portion of the track is meant to represent the path that runs through the site - and via the Squarp Pyramid and the use of chance and randomness algorithms the cars, birds, and river sounds come in and out in an organic and more natural manner melding the site with the artist.

Derek Hixon, aka Mint Pillow, is a West Medford musician & artist: https://mintpillow.bandcamp.com

Download the full sample pack for Mirror Loop: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10qUbk-jO8forPVblTGLVI7M7vRi2iXRr?usp=sharing

Medford, along with most of greater Boston, sits within the lands of the Massachusett people and, despite development, it continues to be Native space. Elizabeth Solomon, a member of the Massachusett Tribe at Ponkapoag, returns to the headwaters of the Mystic River to decolonize the view from the shores of Mystic Lake. 

Solomon speaks about the Saunkskwa of Missitekw, the 17th century Massachusett leader who helped guide her people through the political shockwaves, environmental disruption, and epidemic plagues that accompanied colonization. The Massachusett people maintain their relationship to this place into the present day.

Created by Sarah Kanouse with Elizabeth Solomon
Cello by Kristien Creamer

Oliver Caplan is a conservatory-trained classical music composer, Artistic Director of Juventas New Music Ensemble, and voting member of the Recording Academy. “Watershed” is inspired by daily walks along the Mystic, and like much of his work, by the resiliency of the human spirit and beauty of the natural world. 

Juventas New Music Ensemble:
Nicholas Southwick, Flute
Wolcott Humphrey, Clarinet
Anne Howarth, Horn
Minjin Chung, Cello
Julia Scott Carey, Piano

The Mystic River crossing at Medford Square is an ostensibly natural site, but it's been rigorously shaped by the needs of commerce and transportation, from Paul Revere's fabled ride over the Cradock Bridge, through the ten shipbuilding yards of the 19th century, the Boston & Maine Railroad that ran into the square until I-93 tore it down, the water main running from the Chestnut Hill Reservoir through the Pipe Bridge, to the cars, bicycles, and MBTA buses of today. Through field recordings captured on the site and at nearby locations downstream, I've tried to weave the sonic residue of those human systems back into the sounds of the natural environment, all captured onsite or at nearby locations in Medford. The three movements of this ambient soundscape are designed to slide against each other depending on what route you take through the site, so the pace and path of your footsteps also help shape the composition.

Michael Dewberry is a multidisciplinary artist, toolmaker, and Medford resident. His work includes sculpture (with two pieces currently installed in the Boston area) sound and production design for theater (Ghost Box, Theatre@First, Post-Meridian Radio Players) and live audiovisual improvisation with electronics and software (Anagram, Hybrid Decliners, Video Bleep.) By day he makes design tools for architects.

Saxophone - Chuck Lechien Jr
Vocals - Rebecca Kopycinski
Adze - Ed McCabe
Special thanks to the Hull Lifesaving Museum Maritime Program

A short audio piece by Sarah Kanouse with Elizabeth Solomon and Nicholas Brown

Cello: Kristien Creamer

An interlude by Ian Coss. Music inspired by the spiritual "Deep River"

The installation does continue on both sides of the road, but please be careful crossing here.

You can get between the riverside path and the road here, you'll just have to duck around the metal railing at the end of the bridge.

The Mystic River crossing at Medford Square is an ostensibly natural site, but it's been rigorously shaped by the needs of commerce and transportation, from Paul Revere's fabled ride over the Cradock Bridge, through the ten shipbuilding yards of the 19th century, the Boston & Maine Railroad that ran into the square until I-93 tore it down, the water main running from the Chestnut Hill Reservoir through the Pipe Bridge, to the cars, bicycles, and MBTA buses of today. Through field recordings captured on the site and at nearby locations downstream, I've tried to weave the sonic residue of those human systems back into the sounds of the natural environment, all captured onsite or at nearby locations in Medford. The three movements of this ambient soundscape are designed to slide against each other depending on what route you take through the site, so the pace and path of your footsteps also help shape the composition.

Michael Dewberry is a multidisciplinary artist, toolmaker, and Medford resident. His work includes sculpture (with two pieces currently installed in the Boston area) sound and production design for theater (Ghost Box, Theatre@First, Post-Meridian Radio Players) and live audiovisual improvisation with electronics and software (Anagram, Hybrid Decliners, Video Bleep.) By day he makes design tools for architects.

If you're headed west, toward the Mystic Lakes, you can follow either side of the river, and hear different pieces. If you're headed east, towards Medford Square, just follow the walking path.

Haiku is a short verse form, typically made from and for moments of observation, reflection, and insight. It is customary for such poems to use a small number of words—set within a traditional limit of seventeen syllables (the preceding phrase is precisely that long!)—to convey a vivid scene in nature or everyday life. A few simple details about the season and the setting are intended to suggest unspoken feelings and ideas about our place in the scheme of things. This series of Mystic River Haiku was composed out of the experience of daily walks along the greenways encompassed by the installation.

Gary Roberts is a Medford poet and community arts volunteer, and one of the Sound on Mystic creators.

Many people are surprised to learn of the existence of slavery in the North during the colonial period of the United States. My eyes were opened to this reality when I visited the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, MA. The visit inspired me to research and share stories of Black History throughout Massachusetts.

This audio piece was created to bring to life the experience of Belinda Sutton who survived the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, and worked for the Royall’s estates in Medford, MA and Antigua. Belinda’s petition for reparations is a powerful reminder of the long legacy Black women have for pushing for freedom, justice, and equality, which carries forth to today. 

Jazz Dottin is the creator of Black Gems Unearthed: https://blackgemsunearthed.com
Scoring and sound design by Ian Coss

Turtles are living among us. Perhaps the oldest resident of the river, Painted Turtles have been roaming the earth for over 15 million years. They are a colorful member of our urban wilds that have observed the full evolution of humanity. In this piece, we experience the world from the perspective of a turtle, we speak to it while it's sunbathing, our dogs and children explore it's sights and scents, and it plunges beneath the surface for a reprieve.

Director/Sound Design: Billy Wirasnik
Thanks to Adler and Matt Relstab, Emily Ferrier, and the anonymous residents along the Mystic River who took part in this recording.

Josh Kopecek

Sound on Mystic is created by Ian Coss, Dwayne A Johnson and Gary Roberts. It is supported by the Medford Arts Council, Arlington Cultural Council and Mystic River Watershed Association.

Sound on Mystic

33 ECHOES

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The Echoes

Parkway

Continuity

Canal Song

Catkin

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